ABC World News Misidentifies Photo of Palestinians as Suffering Israelis

During Tuesday report on the unfolding crisis in Israel, ABC News showed a photo with Diane Sawyer describing itas Israelis “trying to salvage what they can” after a Palestinian attack. However, that photo is actually of Palestinians walking through rubble after an Israeli airstrike.

The error was spotted by pro-Palestinian journalist Rania Klahek on Wednesday.

Here’s the photo as it ran on ABC World News.

And here’s the video of Sawyer’s report, in which she says, “Here, an Israeli family trying to salvage what they can”:

But the real caption for that image captured by Associated Press photographer Khalil Hamra tells a different story.

And that caption is the same on the AP Images website.

There was another image Sawyer showed that appears to be from the Gaza Strip, but Sawyer did not explicitly say the woman in that photograph was Israeli.

We’ve reached out to ABC for comment and will update if/when they respond.

Update – 12:40am: We received the following statement from ABC News:

On Tuesday night “World News” aired a report on the conflict between the Palestinians and Israelis, including attacks from both sides. In the introduction to the story, we mistakenly identified a family depicted in a still photo. They are Palestinian, not Israeli. We regret the error and will correct it.

[h/t Reza Aslan]
[images via screengrab, AP]

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Follow Josh Feldman on Twitter: @feldmaniac

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